


je te laisserai des mots

by dewdrops



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Ancient Rome, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Valentine's Day, historically inaccurate anicent rome though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-16 11:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13635372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewdrops/pseuds/dewdrops
Summary: “Tell me,” Even says quietly. “What does the son of an emperor have to pray for?”Isak laughs abruptly, eyelids fluttering. His eyes are watery, but Even pretends not to notice. “I have to be back by midday.”If the shadows being cast into his cell are anything to go by, the time is near. “Is there nothing I can say to make you stay?” he asks.“I think you’ve already said enough,” Isak answers.***Or, Even is Saint Valentine.





	je te laisserai des mots

**Author's Note:**

> a bit of an unorthodox valentine's au for y'all. this is not historically accurate by any means, but we're gonna let it slide because there were like 12 st valentines. but this is based on the story of the priest who was beheaded for wedding christian couples. minus the religion, beheading, and emperor's daughter. sub in isak as the emperor's son. title is from the patrick watson song.

_“We're shooting the scene where I swallow your heart and you make me_  
_spit it up again. I swallow your heart and it crawls_  
_right out of my mouth._  
_You swallow my heart and flee, but I want it back now, baby. I want it back."_

-Richard Siken, My Dirty Valentine

 

Even’s cell has a window. Carved into one of the four walls with the wavering hand of a man who knows he’s digging his own grave, it’s one of two saving graces. 

The light it casts into an otherwise dark cavern is dimmed by bars crafted from a blackened metal. It’s a blessing nonetheless. The first rays of a new day on his face is a feeling he doesn’t think he could do without. He’s a man of ritual, which may be why he’s wound up where he is now. 

He sits with his legs folded, hands resting on the sand in front of him as it’s warmed by the sun. Clarity of the mind is a virtue he’s yet to master, so he’s learned to relish these moments of quiet. The occasional thought will listlessly prod his mind, and he’ll shoo it away without so much an acknowledgement. 

He wants for nothing more than his mind to be a blank slate for what’s to come next, to be an unmarred expanse of plaster for the words of lovesick fools exchanging worthless anecdotes if only to see the other’s handwriting. 

Saving grace, two of two. 

He’s counted twenty-eight sunrises from inside his cell. He’s been held for twenty-eight sunrises, but the significance of his sentencing is dwarfed when he remembers that it has also been twenty-eight sunrises since he’s met Isak. Not that he has to think to remember this. The information exists in a state of easy access, the night of his capture a memory that he continues to live. 

The tear stained faces of his family as he’s taken from his home, the sound of his cell being shut, and then his own heart. It beats so fast that he’s folded in on himself when morning comes, arms drawn weakly around his legs as he tries to console himself. It’s a fruitless effort, and he’s unable to lift his head until he hearts a rustling outside his window. 

His first thought that he’s being broken out by is dispelled as he meets the eyes of someone he’s never seen. He’s never been more certain of anything than he’s certain of the fact that he’s never seen the boy with the golden hair that falls into his eyes as he swoops down to peer into Even’s window. 

They’re stuck in the same moment for a small infinity, and Even’s eyes are burning as he watches Isak from the floor of his cell. When Isak, who seems to register what’s happened long after it's happened, starts to move away from the window, Even feels the tendrils of reality coiling around his ankles and he says, “Wait.” 

It’s one word, but Even thinks he's never said anything worth saying until now. It’s one word that makes Isak stop, and then slowly lower himself back into his prior position. His face is tinged with red, and Even’s heart is having some difficulty keeping time. 

When Isak doesn’t speak, Even does. “Do you have water?” 

The morning he meets Isak is also the morning he learns that Isak is the son of the man who has jailed him. It’s not exactly difficult to piece together; not when Isak disappears from his window and a boy shows up at his cell door with a mug of water minutes later. The boy looks younger than the men who hauled him into his cell the previous night, and there’s a warmth to his brown eyes that has Even pushing himself up from the ground. 

He learns Yousef’s name the same morning. He doesn’t learn Isak’s name until the sixth morning. 

When Isak comes to him on the sixth morning, he’s drawing shapes in the dirt. Yousef’s already delivered that morning’s meager rations, and he’s not expecting company, so the sound of Isak’s voice startles him. “Are you an artist?” 

Even doesn’t think he ever gave Isak an answer, too thrown to properly formulate anything other than a greeting as he tried his best to dust his fingers. 

They talk through the bars of Even’s window until Isak has to leave. There’s a certain reluctance to his departure that has Even fighting a smile as he promises to come back when he’s able. He’s never been so pleased in losing a fight when Isak returns his smile. 

When he wakes the following morning to find panels made of a rich wood and a few pots of the most pigmented paint he’s ever worked with, he knows what he’s going to paint. 

Isak’s surprised when Even shows him the finished portrait, even more so when Even gifts it to him. He’s a bundle of nerves as he tries his best to maintain a facade of indifference in the face of the very thing that’s taken up residence in his thoughts as something of a permanent fixture. It lives in spaces in his mind that he didn’t know were there; the way Isak’s eyes glisten when he smiles with his mouth closed and how he acts like a victim to the laughter that leaves his lips. 

That’s what he’s thinking of on the twenty-eighth morning, eyes shut as the sun climbs until it’s on his face. And then until it’s suddenly not, and the light is being shielded from his cell. 

“Are you praying?”

Even’s been expecting him, but he’s still met with a flurry of indistinguishable feelings that flood him with a warmth not unlike that of the sun. “Yes,” Even says, keeping his eyes shut. It’s not easy, when he knows Isak’s going to be there when he opens them, but he manages. “Quiet, please.” 

Isak complies, but Even can practically feel the way he’s screwing up his face and it takes every last bit of strength Even has not to smile. Eventually, the urge grows too great, and Even opens his eyes at the same time he allows what he’s feeling to play out on his face. 

Isak doesn’t look quite so amused, chin in his hand as he eyes Even from outside the window. “Finished?” 

Even hums, stretching his arms as he stands. “It does look like they’ve been answered.” 

“What?” Isak asks, frowning. 

“My prayers,” he answers. The clay on the wall beside the window is cold as Even leans against it, one hand reaching to curl around a bar. “You’re here.”

He thinks Isak’s trying to feign indignation, but he’s doing a poor job, the corners of his lips twitching as he pushes himself up. “I’m leaving.” 

“You can’t do that,” Even says, shaking his head. 

“Oh?” Isak laughs, and Even doesn’t hide what the sound does to him. Doesn’t think he could hide it if he tried. “And why not?” 

“Do I need to say it?” 

Isak nods, settling back down. He doesn’t speak, only nestles his chin into his palm and watches Even expectantly. 

Even sighs, as though it’s any trouble at all for him to admit that he’s an proponent of Isak being no farther than a stone’s throw from his window. Everyone he’s encountered since him meeting Isak knows this. Yousef and the other prisoners and even the rodents looking for a warm place to rest. The very cell itself waxes poetry, the images and words splayed across each one of its four walls a sentiment to how he feels. 

“There are only so many ways to entertain myself down here,” he says, trying to keep his voice level. “With so few options, I’ll take what I can get.” 

Isak drops his hand, rolling his eyes. He rips a handful of grass from the ground and throws it at Even. “I will leave.” 

Most of the grass is lost before it gets to Even, but he pinches a blade that sticks to his collar. He rolls it between his fingers, thinking about the last time he’d felt the grass. It had been on his feet, wet with rain and slipping through his toes as he tried to gain some purchase. 

Isak has already become better at reading him than he thinks anyone’s been before. He reaches out to grip a bar, just under Even’s hand. “Soon,” he says, his voice a soft murmur that immediately causes some of the tension to seep from Even’s shoulders. 

Even brushes his pinky over Isak’s thumb, marvelling at the clean skin, muted after a long winter. “It doesn’t matter when.” If ever, he doesn’t say. “As long as you’re here.” 

Because as much as he likes to tease, to say things that couldn’t be further from the truth if only to get Isak smiling or laughing, he needs this. 

Isak strays from him when it comes to these things, always so hesitant in translating his feelings into words. Some days he has difficulty stringing together a sentence that doesn’t wear irony like it’s an armour, where anything serious he says only serves as an device to console Even. 

He can recall the moment he felt like he had been put in a prison, only to find a buried chest filled with the most precious riches. Isak had been visiting him for several days when Even worked up the nerve to send a letter, using Yousef as a vessel of communication. Receiving a response was a miracle in and of itself, but reading its contents was when he’d felt it. It’s in this letter, and the many others they have exchanged since, that Isak pours himself into. 

In the flesh, Isak’s eyes are shut and he’s not saying a word. 

“Tell me,” Even says quietly. “What does the son of an emperor have to pray for?” 

Isak laughs abruptly, eyelids fluttering. His eyes are watery, but Even pretends not to notice. “I have to be back by midday.” 

If the shadows being cast into his cell are anything to go by, the time is near. “Is there nothing I can say to make you stay?” he asks. 

“I think you’ve already said enough,” Isak answers. 

Even knows he could never say enough; that there simply isn’t enough to say. He also knows Isak hardly has any more freedom than a convict, so he doesn’t disagree with him. “Tell me about your morning,” he says instead. 

Isak’s mornings never deviate from the routine that has been crafted for him by his father, but Even still thoroughly enjoys listening to him speak about stilted breakfasts made bearable by a goofy slave named Magnus, followed by his studies. He seems to be very involved in the latter, always willing to tell Even all about the latest session with his tutor. 

Even’s sure that if it were anyone else singing the praises of mathematics, or criticizing ideas about medicine from faraway lands, he’d be comforted in the knowledge that their conversation would be ending prematurely. But it’s Isak, and he manages to makes the subject matter not only bearable, but interesting. 

His interjections are minimal, because he’s more than satisfied with listening to Isak speak endlessly about the topics he enjoys. When Isak admits to struggling in some area of comprehension, he says, “I could help,” to which Isak does a terrible job to mask his disbelief. 

Isak updates him on Jonas, a friend who he speaks of with a certain fondness that Even might have mistaken for something else if it weren’t for Eva. When Isak tells him they’ve rekindled the romance they had lost some time in the winter, he says, “I could help them marry.” 

“Most definitely not.” Isak scoffs, and then levels Even with those eyes. Those eyes that plague his consciousness as much as they do his dreams, two pools of green and an endless black. Even has never been so fond of his reflection as he is when he sees it in those eyes. “When you get out, you are going to be a law-abiding citizen.” 

When, not if. “Is that right?” 

Isak hums, fingers encircling a bar once more. “I will personally ensure that you never oversee another marriage.” 

Even smiles. “And what of our own?” 

He expects that Isak will indulge him, but that does little to quell the warmth when it blooms from within his chest when he asks, “What of it?” His voice is a quiet exemplification of all the feelings he expresses in his letters. Insecurity and a reluctance to tell the truth, all cloaked in a fervent need to be who he is. 

The admiration Even feels for the boy in front of him is so great it exhausts his breath. The boy, the son of a cruel and powerful man. Still growing into his limbs, he’s every bit as uncomfortable and sharp-tongued as anyone his age. 

Even could write sonnets about him, and that he does. They’re the writings of a man stricken with anguish and love, the words bleeding into one another as his vision blurs and hand shakes. There’s so much beauty, and Isak paints a new picture everyday in his mind of their life away from war, from injustice and cruelty. It’s as if he forgets that his father rules every expanse of land they’ve ever laid eyes on. 

He sees to it that every one of these pieces of writing are torn to shreds as soon as they’ve been written, lest they invoke the same pain that he feels. 

He does write letters with the intention of them making it out of his cell. They’re destined for the hands of the boy in front of him, and for that, they’re lucky. If Isak does not lie in his own letters, they are pressed against his chest and forgotten in his sheets, until an unsuspecting witness sends the paper fluttering to the floor as they shake his blanket in the morning. They’re unearthed from the clothes he’d worn the previous day, folded and hid beneath pillows. 

As he hands Isak the letter he’d written last night, he’s envious of its imminent travels. “Read this when you can’t sleep,” he says. 

He doesn’t know what’s to come tomorrow, doesn’t know if this is the last time he sees Isak. Doesn’t know if any of that matters. 

He does know that if he’s alive this time tomorrow, he’ll be doing the same thing he’s doing now. Searching for something that doesn’t have a name in Isak’s eyes, brushing his knuckles against Isak’s. “You have to go,” he says, because they’ll stay like this until they’re both bones if he doesn’t. 

Isak smiles, and his cheeks are colored rosy. “It makes me want to stay more when you talk like that.” 

Even doesn’t find smiling quite as easy, but he hopes Isak sees it in his eyes. Sees the sonnets, sees all the words he’s written about green eyes flecked with gold and how much life he sees in them. He hopes the words don’t scare Isak as much as they scare him. 

Isak leaves with a promise to write before the sun sinks below the horizon, so they both have something they read when they lay awake at night. He adds that he’ll make it back the following morning like it’s an afterthought.

But morning is a long ways away, and so is home. Even’s kept here at the will of a man who has more use for him in death than he does in life. 

He keeps all of this to himself, bidding Isak off with the sweetest farewell he can muster from inside a cell. He’ll save it for when he’s alone with his pen and a piece of paper.

**Author's Note:**

> may post the letter even gave to isak, may not


End file.
